365 Project | Week 36

This week was full of blessings ... big and little! I am so thankful for the little ways God chooses to bring surprise and delight to His children. I am also thankful for a friend who blessed us with a spare modem this afternoon as ours decided that it had exceeded its life expectancy yesterday afternoon. It was actually kind of nice to have a forced hiatus from the Internet. Mostly. ;) But I must admit that I would have missed my weekly 365 Project update, especially since today marks my 600th post! :) Thanks for reading them!

 

Day 246. My camera battery was dead when I tried to take a picture last Sunday, so I bring a reminder from this week's Family Circus that there is nothing new under the sun. I had to laugh, because I had kinda thought we were the only ones with a roof that looked like this. Mr. Keane did forget the sneaker, however. ;) You find those when you have a 5-year-old soccer player with a vigorous kick. ;)

Day 247. We had a particularly exciting start to our week when we received a phone call from the Publix bakery early Monday morning informing us that Hannah had won the monthly drawing for a free 8-inch cookie! What fun! The Publix slogan perfectly describes my feelings about that store: "Love to shop here. Love to save here." Thank you, Publix!

 Day 248. Peter recently purchased a replacement for his worn out soccer ball with own money, and with the cooler weather, soccer has once again become the pastime of choice. You can imagine how excited he was when Mommy retrieved not one, but TWO "new" soccer balls that randomly decided to travel down our creek on Saturday afternoon. :) Yet two more of the week's many blessings.

Day 249. It's been fun watching the kids work together to care for their snails ... now numbering eight. They're pretty much the perfect pet--they make no noise, don't jump, require minimal care, and can survive a day or two of distraction. Yep. Perfect for the busy mommy.

Day 250. You know you have a "fixer-upper" when your 2-year-old takes a broom to the wall and proudly announces, "I'm painting, Mommy. I'm painting!" :)

Day 251. Peter is reading simple stories! :) Woo-hoo! So thankful that he's enjoying it and learning quickly! :)

Day 252. My dear hubby counted 110+ pieces of trim for our bathroom ... each of which must be measured, cut, fitted, potentially tweaked, painted, and installed. He's about 60% complete. :) Did I mention there's a LOT of trim in our new bathroom? ;)

 

I'll close with a story reflecting the times in which we live.

 

Saturday was a full, busy day. Chris was working on bathroom trim, etc., with help from Hannah and Matthew, and Peter and I spent most of the morning/afternoon trimming bushes, etc. around the creek and driveway. Then Toby needed a LONG overdue bath, I had some design work for a friend, etc. Lots of things to fill the hours. When my answer to Chris' post-5:00 p.m. "What's for dinner?" question was "Food"--AKA, "I haven't completely decided yet and am planning to scrounge around in the fridge since I didn't put what I had intended to in the crockpot," his rebuttal was "Papa John's Pizza?" Three cheers for Daddy! :) And he hadn't even known that I had a coupon code that would give us a free pizza later this month after our next order!

 

Only one problem. We had no Internet access. Which meant that I couldn't look up the coupon code that was stored in my email. Which also meant that I couldn't log in to my Papa John's account and thus receive credit for my order and points towards our next free pizza. Which also meant that I would have to dig up a phone book in order to find a PHONE NUMBER to order pizza the "old-fashioned" way. We couldn't do that! ;) (Where is that phone book, anyway?) Our final solution? I dashed into the library about 12 minutes before closing, logged into one their computers, and quickly placed our pizza order online. I also picked up the movie which I had reserved online the evening before ... after seeing a Facebook recommendation for it from a friend. :)

 

 

After checking out at the library, I drove to Papa John's where I was delighted to find my fresh pizza waiting for me after having placed the order only about 8 minutes prior. And just as a random side note, two things which particularly make me happy about Papa John's:

1. "Two toppings" is actually four half-toppings. We can order pepperoni on half of our pizza and beef, onion, and tomato on the other half of our pizza, and it counts as "two" toppings! I love it!
2. You can also trade the two chili peppers they include with your pizza for an extra garlic sauce, free of charge! Woo-hoo!

On top of all of that, not only do they make great pizza, but they have a fantastic customer loyalty program. We've enjoyed nearly as many free pizzas from them as we have pizzas that we've actually paid for. :)

 

After enjoying our pizza, we put the kids to bed, finished up with random chores/projects, then cuddled on the couch to enjoy our movie on our Internet-free evening. :) Fun times. :)